Maritime Activities

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 201, 3 February 1915, Page 5

Maritime Activities

THE TOKOMARU. COAL xSLACKENS THE SEA. CREW'S PERILOUS ESCAPE. Received 2, 10.30 p.m. London, February 2. The captain and second officer of the Tokomaru were on the bridge, when they sighted the periscope of a submarine. A few seconds later a torpedo siruck the Tokomaru amidships, carrying away the bulwark and part of the bridge on the port side. After the explosion the water swept the dock 10 the height of the funnels. i mi crew had difficulty in reaching the deck, owing to the list, and to water pouring down the companion-ways. The sea became black as ink, owing to the torpedo penetrating the coal-bunkers. The crew boarded three boats without mishap, and are now at the Sailors' Home at Aldgate.

THE WIRELESS OPERATOR'S STORY. FRENCH DESTROYERS TO THE RESCUE. Received 2, 9.20 p.m. London, February 2. Harry Bryan, wireless operator on the ITokomaru, states that the torpedfr .forced its way through the ship into the coal, where it exploded sideways. Hence it was an hour before the steamer sank, enabling the crew to escape. A dozen French torpedoers answered the S.O.S. signal within half an hour.

THE SUBMARINE IN THE IRISH SEA. NO FURTHER TIDINGS. THE ALARM SUBSIDING. Received 3, 12.5 a.m. London, February 2. There are no further tidings of the submarine. Some sailings between Ireland and Liverpool were deferred, but commercial circles deprecate any undue alarm. It is reported at Liverpool that the submarine U2O received a supply of oil on Saturday from a vessel flying the Danish flag, on the North Wales coast.

GERMANS JUBILANT OVER SUBMARINE RAIDS. Amsterdam, February 1. The German newspapers are jubilant at the shbmarine activity which is threatening to cut off England's food supply and strike at the root of her trans-oceanic trade.

MESSAGE FROM CAPTAIN HALSEY. London, February 1. Captain Haisoy telegraphed to Hon. T. Mackenzie: "All aboard are proud of! having represented tho Dominion and: leceiving its appreciation." i JOLLY TARS FIGHTING. "THAT'S FOR THE BABYvKILLEES!"; Times and Sydney Sun Services. Received 2, 6 p.m. London, February 2. A naval chaplain who was present at the' North Sea fight writes:— "The public would have loved to have heard the cries of the men as they loaded the guns: 'That's for Scarborough!' 'That's for the baby-killers!' Tlien they sang ITipperary.' The enthusiasm was intense. For the evening service we had a voluntary attendance, and the battery-deck was crammed. The men realised their gratitude to God."

TONS, GUNS AND SPEED. m WHAT THE NAVAL BATTLES SAVE PROVED. (Naval Correspondent of the "Daily Mail.") Naval battles of this war have made one thing clear. The victories lay with Tons, Guns, and Speed—and, of course, the men behind the guns. The threo "stand-up" fights—that of the Bight of Heligoland, that off the Chili coast, and Vice-Admiral Sturdee's brilliant victory near the Falkland Islands —as well as the isolated combats, such as that between the Sydney and the Emdcn, or between the Konigsberg and the Pegasus—have amply proved that a superiority in tons, guns, and speed, however slight, means success once the fleets are rounded up for action. The swiftness and precision with which naval power can be brought into effective operation has never been more strikingly demonstrated than by the smashing victory which Sir Frederick Sturdco achieved. The impatience with which the socalled inactivity of the British fleet Was regarded during the first weeks of the war has now disappeared. We see the gradual but inevitable extermination of every enemy ship that puts to sea. We are growing to realise that even overwhelming predominance at sea —though, as Bhown above, tons and guns win the battle once it begins—is not immediately omnipotent. In the Nelsonian wars the superiority of the British fleet was far less marked than it is to-day, and yet enormous difficulty was experienced in bringing the enemy to action. The war with France was renewed, after a brief interval, in May, 1803; and it wa s not until twenty-nine months later that Nelson succeeded in bringing about the first and only great naval battle of the war at Trafalgar. [ Since then the difficulties of the superior Power have increased consider-

"" ' ;'■ ""■•■■"•■»""■'**»""- - - ■ ■■--«, i ably. Mines and fortifications > have made it even less easy ihan it was to destroy the fleet of an enemy which prefers not to put its,fata to the test of a fleet action, while the invention and development of the submarine have exposed the containing fleet to daffgers it, was never called upon to face in the old days. In spite of this, however,, tin; fundamental value of the superior fleet remains. When the last remaining German warship has disappeared from the high seas, it will matter little whether those now lurking in the Kiel Canal and elsewhere come out. or remain in their burrows until the end of the war. In either case the strength of the British fleet will have completely justified itself by keeping the seas closed to the enemy, and free to ourselves and our friends—among whom we may not unreasonably include all those neutral "nations whose legitimate business has been damaged by the German policy of sowing tiic high seas with concentrated sudden death, on the off-chance that a British ship may be among the destroyed. 73,000 TONS SUNK; COST 20,000 TONS. Admiral Sturdee's victory is a more serious blow to the German navy than is represented by the mere number and tonnage of the ships sent to the bottom. For all practical. purposes, it means the extinction of the only part of the German navy which could honestly he called the High Sea Fleet. At the beginning of the war there wore fourteen German cruisers and specially commissioned commerce destroyers on the high seas, and of these we have sunk or destroyed seven, captured one, (the liner Sprecwald), and barricaded the Konigsberg in a river, so that she can be dealt with whenever our ships have sufficient leisure. In this way we have accounted for 72,945 tons of German war shipping, at a cost to ourselves of 26,035 tons this being the aggregate tonnage of the Good Hope, Monmouth, and Pegasus. There now remain—or there did after tlio Falkland Islands* action—only five German warships afloat outside the North Sea. .Their total tonnage is 35,417, of which three-fifths is absorbed by two armed merchantmen, which must Tall victims to the first cruiser that comes up with them. In gun-fighting at sea we have so far lost throe ships in destroying fifteen German. The great bulk of our loss has been inflicted bv submarines—a type of vessel whose introduction into our service was violently opposed, on the PTonnd that it was not a weapon nf civilised war, and by mines, which wre ".».•-, "sod by us at all during the frM; t.wi months of the war, or until the policy of Germany compelled ns We have bad seven ships sunk bv submarines to Germany's two, and the '•p.tio is not disproportionate when it is remembered that we have had nrobaHy a hundred warships at sen, in hom" waters for every single Germnn vessel that has ventured more than fifty miles out of harbor. The menace of the mine has .lanreh 7 disappeared, although in the first week or two of the war it was regarded as the most potent danger we had to face. Since the los,s of the Amphion on the day after the declaration of war these engines have cost us only the eunboat Speedv and the submarine T)5. The only German loss in this manner was the armored cruiser Yorck. which struck a German mine at the entrance to Wilhelmshaven. The war has proved conclusively not only the value of the big gun, but also of speed. In the action off Heligoland the most useful of our ships was the Aretbusa. one, of our new 30-ktiot oilburning light cruisers. Tn the action on November 1 the German ships were enabled by their superior speed to choose their battle position and put the British vessels at a disadvantage. The Karlsruhe, one of the three German cruisers remaining at liberty, has twice escaped destruction owing to her high speed of 2S knots. All along the war has justified the advocates of speed—of the battle-cruiser, the 30-knot small cruiser, and the fast destroyer; for while speed enables the weak ship to escape from a superior foe, it adds enormously to the value of a heavy armament by permitting the ship carrying it to select the range at which Bhe will fight—which, of course, is beyond the effective range of the guns carried by the more weakly armed enemy. We hav-j had our share of losses during the war, and although the material reduction of the Fleet has been more than balanced by the delivery of iuw and more powerful units, tlhe loss ol life is a thing that cannot be replaced. It may be said with perfect truth, howevT, that the naval campaign is proceeding much more satisfactorily than' wo had any reason to expect, seeing that we are fighting the second of th'.j world's naval Bowers, and Wic bulk of losses have been inflicted bv a form of warfare which we have practically no opportunity of .waging on the enemy. On the other hand, however, a fleet which remains moored in its harbours at buoys and quays is liahlo to forms of attack from which the float which keeps the sea is immune; and the enemy will find ere long that while the .Briti*hNavv has heen waiting, and can afford to wait indefinitely, :t has not been waiting 'in idleness. '